Denis Volkov. Protest Movement in Russia Through the Eyes of Its Leaders and Activists
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Denis Volkov. Protest Movement in Russia through the Eyes of its Leaders and Activists Results of previous research. ....................................................................................................................... 2 Infrastructure of protest movement. ........................................................................................................... 4 Observing during the elections. ............................................................................................................... 4 “Citizen Observer”: .............................................................................................................................. 5 “The League of Voters”: ....................................................................................................................... 6 Navalny’s “RussElections”: ................................................................................................................... 7 Political protests. ..................................................................................................................................... 9 “Ethical and “stylistic” incompatibility with the authorities, abuse of power: .................................. 10 Complaints of the people in power: ................................................................................................... 11 Inefficiency of authorities: ................................................................................................................. 11 Organizing political protest. ................................................................................................................... 12 Organization Committee .................................................................................................................... 12 Workshop of Protest Actions ............................................................................................................. 15 On the role of “Solidarity” Movement. .............................................................................................. 17 Civil protest. ........................................................................................................................................... 19 From the March of Millions to the Walks on May 7th and Moscow’s “Occupy”. ............................... 20 Writers’ walk on May 13th. ................................................................................................................. 23 Municipal Elections in Moscow. ......................................................................................................... 24 “Parallel economy”. ........................................................................................................................... 26 Protest results ............................................................................................................................................ 29 Influence of protest movement on political system. ............................................................................. 29 Activization of various interest groups: opponents and supporters of the regime. .............................. 29 Tightening the screws. ........................................................................................................................... 30 Unreformability of Putin regime “from above”. .................................................................................... 31 Discussing Putin’s fate. .......................................................................................................................... 32 Vague feeling of a dead-end. ................................................................................................................. 34 Limits of the protest movement. ........................................................................................................... 36 Consolidation and civil solidarity. .......................................................................................................... 39 The problem of civil control over authorities. ....................................................................................... 42 Issue of leadership. ................................................................................................................................ 45 New generation of leaders. .................................................................................................................... 49 Program of Action. ................................................................................................................................. 50 Conclusion. ................................................................................................................................................. 52 Results of previous research. The Levada-Center experts have analyzed protest activity in several ways. The corpus of quantitative research comprises polls at the opposition rallies in Moscow (in December 2011, February 2012 and September 2012), regular Russian public-opinion polls about the attitudes towards the protests, as well as several qualitative polls conducted in Moscow. This article represents the results of qualitative research conducted in April-June 2012 with the support of the National Endowment for Democracy1. The aim of the present work is to describe the ‘infrastructure’ of the protest movement, i.e. major organizations and citizen associations involved in the events of the end of 2011 and the first half of 2012. The objective is to understand why the spirit of protest emerged and how it evolved. This is all the more important to do in order to contest the opinion that “the absence of institutional structures of mobilization is a characteristic feature of current Russian protest (with occasional exceptions uncharacteristic of the general trend).”2 The first part of the article addresses this task. The second part includes the description of the motives of leaders and activists, their inspirations and concerns, and what their protest has helped them to achieve. The work quotes extensively from interviews. In these events, we may distinguish several stages of public mobilization: a) protest voting during the elections to the Duma on December 4, 2011, which the public resolved to do 1-2 weeks before the elections; b) monitoring the polling stations, the attention to which was heightened due to the events of the preceding weeks (i.e. a scandalous election campaign) and the publication of the facts of violations on the election day; c) mass rallies (starting from the first protest on December 5 in Chistie Prudy and finishing with mass rallies).3Therefore, we could talk about the fact that the wave of protests had started to grow already in November, well before the election day. The results of voting as well as the falsifications only added fuel to the flames already kindled. Several factors contributed to the atmosphere of uncertainty and the development of significant tension in all strata of Russian society: economic recession, accumulated system tensions, conflicts of interest among the community groups aspiring to power, and the corrupt state – and, consequently, the instability of the state system in general, the rapid decline of government authority. As an outcome of a series of pre-election scandals, to which mostly the educated, financially and informationally independent big city inhabitants reacted, tensions gave way to agitation. Given these conditions, people enthusiastically reacted to the calls of the protest organizers to march into the streets. People responded to the messages on the radio and in social networks as well as to flyers that were distributed. Mass mobilization started from the grass- roots, with protest voting during the elections to the State Duma, which, apparently, enlarged the scope of the events to the whole of Russia.4 This is why these events were outside the sphere of influence of major players, who only managed to react and to adapt to the flow of events with varying degrees of success. Time flew by: mass mobilization, which outlined the framework of 1 The topic of the causes of emergence and dynamics of Russian protest movement, which unfolded in December 2011, was considered before. Ref. Volkov D. “Protest rallies in Russian in the end of the 2011-beginning of 2012: demands for democratization of political institutes”. Vestnik Obshchestvennogo mneniia, 2012. Vol.2. pp. 73-86. 2 Bigbov A. “Research methodology of the “grassroots” street activism (Russian rallies and street camps, December 2011-June 2012)/Laboratorium .2012, № 2. P. 139 3 For the chronology of protest events in 2011-2012, please refer to: “Protest behavior”/Kommersant-Online http://kommersant.ru/doc/2012447 4 About the convergent synchronizing of the role of the “single” election day ref. Kynev A. “Preterm trap”/Gazeta.ru, November 20, 2012 issue, http://www.gazeta.ru/comments/2012/11/20_x_4860077.shtml the political landscape for months to come, boiled down to two weeks (from the day of voting to the first mass rallies on December 10 and December 24, respectively). At that time, the key players were identified, and the relationships among them were established, which later formed the basis for new organizations. Although the minority of the people (not only in the entire country but even in the capital) became the driving force of the protest, the protests were sympathized with and understood by almost half of the people in the country. This provided a conducive background